The directors: Stephen Fry

In the first of a series of articles about directors in collaboration with Direct, the journal of the Directors Guild of Great Britain, Stephen Fry argues that, when making a film, all the important work is done off set

I spent nearly 20 years watching directors before I dared take up the reins myself. I have had the good fortune to be directed by some of the very best — John Schlesinger, Fred Schepisi, Robert Altman, Stephen Frears and Mike Newell among others — and I often used to ask myself, as I waited for the set to be lit or the star to be ready, if there was any recognisable quality they shared, any distinctive characteristic that set them apart from the competent but ordinary. It didn’t have to be a technique, it could be a mannerism or a style.

We can instantly know a real actress for example, by her loose connection to reality and addiction to herbal medications, a sound mixer by his nerdy beardiness and a make-up assistant from her pink puffer jacket and baby talk. Directors favour woollen scarfs, one might observe (the Richard Loncraine generation are very fond of shorts, whatever the weather), but these are exterior matters; is there anything else that sets them apart, any shared gene pool trait or way of interacting with humans that alerts you to their different way of interpreting the world?

What did I learn that I wanted to imitate when I began my first film? Quietness is one thing, perhaps a surprising thing at that. Television directors, with their brutal six-page-a-day schedules can often dominate a set with loud instruction back and forth between actor and camera operator, producer and AD, but feature-film helmers frequently astonish visitors unused to the working of a crew by being the least obvious person there, tucked away in a corner on a chair sipping coffee, seemingly far from the action. But perhaps they come into their own when talking the talk with their DoPs? Again, that’s more likely to happen with a TV director.

Good movie directors feel no need to convince the set of their competence and fluency with camera moves and gripping. The first three or four takes of an Altman set-up, for example, were a catastrophe of shootings-off, misframings, derailments and trippings over. A few waves of his hands, a slow assumption that the operator, grip and actors would sort it out, and Bob let the shot find itself until a mysterious beauty, flow and naturalness emerged that seemed entirely right and entirely spontaneous and entirely unforced. Certainly not story-boarded and shot-listed. Much of the framing appears to be left up to the operator and DoP, and much of the endless debate about line-crossing that will arise from time to time is sorted out between continuity (or script supervisor, as they now are) and operator; ‘Line fascism, darling. That’s when I go and have another cup of coffee,’ Schlesinger used to say.

From an actor’s point of view I suppose the thing I came to understand most was that the director’s most crucial job is to be the only one who says ‘Cut, check the gate, print… moving on.’ I remember when playing Oscar Wilde that there was a scene in which I was uncertain that what I was doing was right — it seemed either too emotional or not emotional enough, I can’t remember which. After the fourth or fifth take, Brian Gilbert, the director, chuckled his happy mantra of cut, check, print and I wandered over and pawed him anxiously. Was he sure? Perhaps another one? Brian said to me then these words: ‘Stephen, when you watch the film and see that moment and find you hate the way you’ve played it, then you have my permission to find me and punch me out.’ In other words, trust me. I know what I want and I’ve got it in that scene.